Iga Swiatek's Serve Harshly Slammed By Serena Williams' Former Coach
NewsFriday, 04 April 2025 at 10:08
Iga Swiatek's superb achievements do not mean her game is perfect. Serena Williams' ex-coach, Rennae Stubbs, has harshly critiqued the Pole's serve.
Swiatek's serve and volley are regularly touted as the shots she could improve further. Last year, she won 82.6% of her service games, almost 7% more than her dominant 2022 season. That shows some improvements were made.
However, the four-time French Open champion's serve numbers are less impressive so far this season. She did not fix her serve last year, but the positive signs in 2024 evaporated somewhat in the opening three months of 2025.
In an episode of her podcast, Stubbs held nothing back. The Australian said she hated Swiatek's serve and accused the former WTA world No. 1 of being too predictable and unwilling to change things up.
"This is my thing about Iga and it has been for a while. She is 5ft 10, 5ft 11 [she is 5ft 9]. She should have a much better serve. I absolutely hate her service motion. It is so discombobulated. It’s like she takes the arm there, then the foot comes way too much to the front of her body."
"She should be way more side on. She should have a lot more wrist snap. Her serve has not developed at all and it’s so predictable. Where she is getting hurt in matches now is that she is getting broken a lot and I think the predictability of her second serve is where it hurts her."
Although Stubbs would like to see Swiatek change things up more, she feels that the issues with her motion make it challenging to do that, and technical changes are needed to make significant improvements.
"She hits the same one over and over and she kind of refuses to change it up. I think it is very hard for her to change it up because of her motion and because it is so discombobulated."
"She has like three hitches, she is very front on, her ball toss is way too far to the right. There is a lot of things she could improve to get a better serve and get more free points on her serve and become more of a weapon."
Implementing serving alterations is not easy. Coco Gauff demonstrates that reality. Despite being a superb player with a great first serve when it clicks, the 2023 US Open champion has struggled severely on second serve in several matches.
Swiatek will have some time to work on the technical aspects of her game in the next ten days. The five-time Grand Slam champion decided to skip next week's 2025 Billie Jean King Cup qualifiers to get additional recovery and training time.
That means her next tournament will be in Stuttgart, which starts on April 14th. The WTA 500 tournament has an incredible entry list, including Swiatek, Gauff, Aryna Sabalenka, and Mirra Andreeva.
Swiatek has been the best clay court player in the world by a distance since 2022, and she undoubtedly hopes to thrive during her favorite time of the season again this year.
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